


A berserker, a cleric and an outlaw walk into a bar

by muusan



Category: ELEX (Video Game)
Genre: Feelings, Multi, OT3, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 08:59:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15045497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muusan/pseuds/muusan
Summary: Ray is surprised to discover that Jax actually favours him over the others as a companion.





	A berserker, a cleric and an outlaw walk into a bar

Ray is surprised to discover that Jax actually favours him over the others as a companion. He doesn't really know why that is - Ray can sure stand for himself in a fight, but it's not like the otherscan't, and throughout his hectic life he was told multiple times that his personality is not much of an advantage. Still more often than not in the evening Jax finds him and asks if Ray wants to raise at dawn and go find some new trouble in a remote corner of this freshly made world. And every time Ray agrees, even if he just recovered from a particularly painful wound in his side, or if he planned to watch Nasty try to beat Duras in hand to hand that day - they fight like they are on fucking fire, seriously, it's a sight to see. But Ray abandons it all and goes on another dangerous mission and it's not, at least _not only_ because right after he agrees Jax gives him back a small content smile.

Content Jax does something weird to Ray, makes his cheeks feel warm and the soles of his feet feel chilly. His approval slides along Ray's spine like a caress and the outlaw pretty much has become addicted to that feeling by now. He doesn't let himself think about it, but he would probably bend over backwards if that made Jax smile like that.

What's the harm in that, really? He likes Jax liking him, what's the big deal about that? It's not Ray's fault the former alb has a single most attractive smile in the world and uses it like a super weapon with a lethal result. It's absolutely not Ray's fault that smile is completely fucking hypnotizing.

***

In the end it is Jax who lays the final blow on Jackson. A swift, but powerful stab of the sword and Jackson's body falls to the ground limp and lifeless. The whole situation isover before Ray can process it – he is free now. No more need for protection, no more running away and sleeping with one eye open. Ray is now just another person in the world now, completely anonymous. He smiles maniacally at that, so wide that it hurts his face. Weird and previously unknown feeling of unparalleled joy bubbles inside of him and spills over in a form of happy howls and crazy loud laughter. He runs circles around Jackson's body with his gun pointed to the sky and the flaps of his duster floating in the air behind him, and then squishes Jax in unholy mother of all embraces. But when Ray lets him breathe and looks at commander's face his smile wanes. 

Jax is breathing hard, there are beads of sweat on the hairline of his pale face. His chest and shoulders rise and fall quickly under the leather armor, his eyes are closed, he swallows thickly and takes a deep and long breath. He's got an expressionof deepest relief on his face, like he is barely holding it together, like he could collapse under the weight of it and fall to the floor just like his target.

For a second Ray doesn't understand, but then itdawns on him. He didn't even think of this, of how the price on his head might affect anyone else and even when he did, he never imagined, that someone could be so deeply involved. That someone could _care_.

A strange warm and sickly feeling spreads all over Ray's body from under his ribs at that thought.

He wants to say he's sorry. He wants to say he was stupid, wants to apologise for everything he put Jax through, because he didn't know. But what good will it do?

«You alright?» is all his stupid brain allows him to say.

Jax wipes the sweat from his brow and in a blink of an eye looks completely calm and collected again, as if Ray had just imagined everything.

***

After the price on Ray's head has been lifted they travel even more extensively than before – from Origin to the West Tavar to the Hort and the Domed City and all the way to the Old Factory Island. They spend more time on the road than all the other's combined, and now Ray has gotten so used to it that he feels jittery when Jax insists on leaving the village alone. To tell the truth in the beginning of this journey he was not sure he wouldn’t run for his life and leave Jax behind at the first sign of serious trouble, so nobody is more surprised at this feeling then him.

They have settled into a routine, a balance between friendly chatter and comfortable silence, when Ray gets to just watch Jax. He watches the Commander fight and sleep and eat and plan. Watches him work on his weapons, negotiate and climb up the ladder with the Clerics. And Jax is clearly someone to look at –he is poised, he is fearless, he is compassionate. Ray can't figure out how he evenlearned to care commanding albs and their machines, but after the whole Jackson deal Ray knows. He notices how it comes naturally to Jax to give Ray the less chewy pieces of meat or to keep the most heavily armed enemies focused on himself, even though technically nobody was sworn to obey or anything. Jax listens to Ray's tactical advice and late-night ramblings with the same focused expression. Jax leads him forward, Jax also has his back.

Ray still hasn't found a name for the sickly feeling, that keeps appearing when the commander is looking at him or the other way around. All of that just... _gets_ to Ray a little.It is difficult to put into any other words he knows.

***

Evenings at the kitchen in Origin quickly become Ray's favourite past time, outweighing even the dirty hand-to-hand matches. He always gets shitfaced and has a headache the morning after, he is not that young any more, you know. But when Jax is sitting opposite of him with his hand wrapped loosely around the glass and his shoulders relaxed, looking contentedly into the lucid twilight outside the window, all the future troubles seem worth it.

They simultaneously take one more swig each,the shitty alcohol slides smoothly with Ray, but makes Jax pull a sour face, and all of it is just so fucking domestic, both funny and endearing and Ray wants it to last forever. Wants to go on adventures, hunt animals, kill reavers, fix armour, solve other people's and each other's problems and always come back here, to be like this again.

Ray wants _this_ , whatever this is.

«I wish we didn't have to do it,» he says under his breath.

Jax looks at him expectantly, craning his head to the side, prompting him to explain what he means. Ray knows he shouldn't, he hasn't even sorted _himself_ out yet, but the alcohol is strong and Jax is looking, waiting, so he can't hold back.

«I wish you didn't have to... return there,» he waves vaguely in the direction of the alb territory. Jax averts his eyes at that. «I wish we met under better circumstances,» Ray finishes lamely.

They could have been friends, who grew up together, you know. An unlikely, illogical friendship, where they would be exactly as they are now, but without the looming dread ahead. Or reluctant partners in some crime, who learned to like each other over the cause of time. Or even... _even..._

Jax's eyes are crystal clear and impossibly sad and Ray sees the reflection of the day Commander put Jackson to his final rest inside of them, only this time it doesn't disappear. Jax continues to look at him, vulnerable and worried.

«I have to go,» he says quietly. «But you don't have to come with me.»

Ray chuckles then smiles as broadly and infectiously as he possibly can.

«Like hell I would live you alone in this,» he hopes desperately that it clears the thickened atmosphere and that his mask stays on long enough to fool the guy. «You'll get gangbanged without me.»

Jax laughs at Rays profanity, an actual laugh, that rumbles in his chest and fills him with warmth, and then he puts his palm on Ray's shoulder, slides it smoothly to the nape of his neck in one fluid and bold motion of someone who was never taught of shame or fear or rules human interaction. He just holds it there, smiling, happy for a second. Ray balls his fists to hide the tremor in his fingers and hopes Jax will chalk the flush across his cheeks to drinking, while the hand burns him like a hot iron.

***

Caja is a cautious loner.

Ray doesn't know what makes her so important, but Jax is adamant that she is – some lunatic from his ambiguous past told him so.They catch her on empty streets of Abessa and while the commander talks to her in hushed tones, she casts wary glances over his shoulders, so it's only fair that Ray watches her too.

She is tacit for a berserker, silent and alert even after she reluctantly agrees to go back to Origin with them. Also, something about her makes Ray uneasy, aware of his side turned towards her while they walk across the desert and the forest and the meadow. And that feeling is not without basis – she left a perfectly fine major berserker city of Goliet to go and live alone in cleric-controlled Abessa, that's something shady right there. Caja is a dangerous mystery staring at him from under a disguise of a pretty girl.

Ray doesn't like mysteries. But here he is freezing on a thin bedroll in the middle of nowhere, while Caja ruffles the smouldering coals in a carefully constructed fire pit, which Ray knows they shouldn’t have made, but hey, it’s only so long a man can survive on dried meat and water, sometime he has to eat a solid, hot meal, you know?

Jax is also sort of different from his normal self around her - he speaks less and covertly studies her, averting his eyes before she can notice. He is frowningall the time, his eyebrows are constantly drawn together, forming a small vertical wrinkle, like he can see the puzzle, but can't quite figure it out. Ray can feel something weird in the air, he can't put a finger on it, but it's big, looming heavily over the three of them and he could swear Jax can feel it too.

Still, there is a new day and a long road back to Origin tomorrow, so Ray falls asleep watching the two others brush their swords and trying to come up with a butt to the joke, where a berserker, a cleric and an outlaw walk into a bar.

***

Thorald the fucking Pilgrim immediately rubs Ray the wrong way.

Caja, Jax and him find the fucker in the abandoned ruins to the South West, watching the emptiness from an elevated stone and "thinking" or "meditating" or whatever is his stupid excuse for just sitting there, while the albs kill his people and mutilate their land. And it even would be fine with Ray, really, who cares what berserkers choose to believe about this useless idiot, if Caja didn't bow to him.

Seeing her get on her knees in curt and graceful movement and lower her shining eyes makes Ray angry, but he averts his gaze somewhere away from raging desire to punch the pilgrim in his smug face and lift Caja from the ground and shake her hard while shouting that she is too good to bow to anyone.

Jax is also too lenient with Thorald. Ray understands why he agrees to be the errand boy yet again, they need berserkers on their side if they have a chance of defeating Xacor, but agreeing to a magic ritual is pushing it. He doesn't understand what transmutation means, but the words "dangerous" and "60 to 70 percent sure" do not need to be translated for him. He begs Jax silently to back out of this, to not believe someone who claims they can strip albs of their power in one single motion, but Commander is determined to try. Ray helps Caja onto the stone and her hands are cold when he lets them go.

A few minutes later, when all four of them fly across the swamp and land hard in ungraceful heap of limbs his suspicions are confirmed. Ray hits the back of his neck on a bolder, nearly avoiding gruesome and stupid death, but raises himself from the dirt just in time to catch Zardom's cocky smile as he kneels over Caja and then there is a flash of violet light and then nothing. The two of them have vanished.

Ray shakes Jax and Thorald awake and while the pilgrim rambles on about the failed magic Ray watches the Commander finally understand that he's taken Caja and there is no way to know why he did it or where they are. That is the first and only time the outlaw sees him touch the PSI amplifier, that usually hangs uselessly on the side of his helmet. Jax puts a heavy hand on it, caresses it in a completely terrifying way, not taking his eyes away from Thorald.

He ends up not using it. Instead Jax puts them through a bonecrushing search and rescue operation, they cover way more land in a day than they can handle, but he doesn't sleep or eat, just keeps going with a set jaw, staring into the misty night in front of him with bloodshot eyes. Ray yet again can feel tension inside of him rise sky high, threatening to snap his body in half, so he doesn't object and just tries his best to silently keep up.

Thankfully in the end they do find her, dazed but unharmed. Ray watches Jax and Caja crush each other in tight embrace from the side lines and doesn't want to think about the meaning of all this.

_***_

They get together sometime before their band of misfits hatches the plan for the final assault.

Ray was screwing around with the shoulder pad upgrade all day, fixing this and fiddling that, but the fucking thing just won't work right, so he is sweaty and on edge when he crouches to look for the small escaped screw on the ground. It's no good, of course, the grass is too tall to find anything in it, so Ray sighs and makes himself return to the warehouse for the extra part and that's when he sees it. In the darkness and warmth of the night, at the end of the narrow passage between the two bearing walls two shades are twisting and turning, enveloping each other, their movements sharp and suggestive of people overcome by passion in an unfortunate place.

Ray stops dead in his track, dumbfounded by the sight - the two are really going at it, lips slotted together, hands roaming, completely unashamed and not even that silent – he can hear the wet noises and the small gasps of pleasure that escape them. And then his eyes get used to the dark and it hits him like a hammer – it's _Jax and Caja_. He is pressing her to the wall with all of his body, his face is buried in the crook of her neck and her face is obscured with long hair, breaking loose from the usual ponytail, but it is unmistakeable. It's _them_.

For the first few moment Ray can't shake of the stupor. He stands there, still holding the unlucky plate, completely mesmerized. One of Caja's strong and bare legs is framing Jax's body, sliding along the back of his covered thigh, pulling him in, urging him along. Jax's shoulders are tense, muscles in his arms are bunching, holding Caja up against the wall. They are too lost in each other to notice him or to care about the way they look right now, probably, but it doesn't make anything Ray sees less embarrassing. Or _hot._ They are so fucking extremely hot that he drinks them in hungrily for the few minutes it takes him to shake off the stupor and hide quickly behind the nearest wall.

With his back to the couple Ray breathes outas quietly as he can while his heart is beating rapidly in his throat. When the mist of arousal dissipates and the numbness that comes with it slowly recedes, Ray feels suddenly confused. Sad, angry, jealous. _Left out._ Sorry for himself. He sits there for a few more minutes, remembering subtle things that happened between them that he brushed off, chose to miss - they all make sense now. He looked away for too long and it is only fitting that life would bend backwards to throw it all in his face.

A muffled moan echoes from behind him, so Ray ditches the stupid piece of armor in the tall grass, gets on his feet and runs towards his room without looking back.

***

The piece of metal scrap on the ground still had some juice in it as it turned out. Ray watched in horrified stillness as it lifted its gun and took a shot straight at Jax's back, a ball of plasma flew bright and silent through the air. The commander didn't fall on the ground the way Ray subconsciously expected though, instead it was Caja, she was kneeling behind him, clutching a gory burnt mess that used to be her left shoulder. She is resting now, pumped full of anything they could give her, wrapped in cloth and pain and useless for the foreseeable future.

All of them are loyal - to Jax and to each other to some extent. They all have at least some grasp of the coming danger and the very probable death that waits for them in Xacor, and Ray believes he _would_ die for Jax if he had to. But here is Caja, who actually did it, took a bullet another person, with no doubt or hesitation.

Ray has mostly gotten used to not being able to hate Caja or Jax the way he should. The way he _wants to_.

Ever since the two of them got together Ray started spotting strange new things about Jax. The way he squares his shoulders and lifts his chin higher under condescending glances of berserkers. The way his smile becomes just a little slyer, when they are walking through the village together. The way he shadows her, watches her and touches her gently, but with clear intent. The way he is stronger, fiercer and deadlier than ever now.

So yeah, when Nasty asks Jax if he is fucking Caja in that mostly bored intonation, from Ray's point of view the answer is obvious. They are not _just fucking_.

Jax's only reply to Nasty is a chuckle and a quiet remark that he'll be up the hill.

***

«If there is something you should have told me, now is the time,» Jax is standing in the gate of the armoury and with a single glance at him Ray knows it's all going down.

With all the shit that kept happening to them he almost forgot about it. The contract, the shot, the glider – all of it felt like it happened in Ray's previous life. But Jax is right here in front of him now and he is clearly on edge - his jaws are working, and his fists are bunched at his sides. He advances into the darkness of the room, and Ray has to make conscious effort not to back away.

He should confess. He should apologise and try to explain everything, but his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. He mumbles something unintelligible, caught like a wild animal in the scope of the laser gun, and in the next second Jax is on him, pushing him into the wall, effectively cutting off his oxygen with a forearm on his neck.

He is saying things in angry, dangerous undertones Ray's never heard from him before. Demands answers, shouts and shames him. And looks at him with sad, disappointed eyes and that look makes Ray bleed in a way that no words or wounds ever could.

_You were my friend. How could you._

Ray can't stay conscious for much longer, if Jax keeps pushing on his windpipe, so he forces the words out despite the ringing noise in his ears.

«He had Tommy,» the pressure increases, the darkness starts to creep around the edges of his vision, leaving only Jax's eyes in the line of sight. "He had my little brother".

Jax has a brother, right? He's got to be able to understand, right? Ray tried to save Tommy, he did everything, made elaborate plans, used brute force, but Zardom was way out of his league. He left Ray no choice and no way out.

Next thing Ray knows he is sitting on the floor with his back to the wall. It's impossible to tell how much time has passed after the noise in his ears and the darkness before his eyes have dissipated, but Jax is nowhere in sight. Ray's throat burns, it hurts to breathe, he feels his neck for any damage and the tears just start flowing down his cheeks at their own will. So he sits there, shivering wrecked emotional idiot that he is and cries silently, bitterly, pressing a palm to his mouth and feeling like he's been ripped apart beyond any repair.

***

«... fucking idiot,» he hears over the deafening white noise. And then somebody is gripping his arms and shoulders trying to lift him of the ground.

He can't feel most of his body. He also can't open his eyes. The person lifting him is grunting, seizing him by the front and sides of his leathers, until he is mostly seated.

Ray's consciousness slowly comes back to him, he struggles sluggishly with the guy. More like tries to struggle, because he only succeeds at weakly pushing at the unknown's shoulder, but the man is having none of it, grabbing him across the waist and hoisting him against his smaller self with Ray's hand stretched along his shoulder. The man is taking him somewhere, Ray's feet are dragging in the dirt and snow, the world around him is loud and sounds panicky. His face hurts, he only succeeds in opening his eyes a tiniest bit, and it's not enough to see anything but the mushy ground.

Ray should catch up with his feet, that's the only thing he can think about, that's the only way he will get out of here, wherever this is. But now he can't even catch up with his thoughts, it's all a mess of buzzing blue shields, red blood, orange fire, green grass, white snow. Brown eyes. Pink skin.

The man is saying something to him, his voice is shrill, broken, scared.Ray can't understand a word of it. May be the end of the world they were promised finally had come, but that doesn't mean he should give up fighting, he sure knows that. So, he tries to shake off the haze, to reach the ends of his toes and fingers with his consciousness, and that's when the pain – blinding, hot, most insufferable pain he ever felt – strikes him across the body. He cries out, and falls to the ground, but the pain doesn't stop, he is burning in agony, screaming his throat raw and thrashing in someone's unyielding grip, when two cold palms cradle his jaw. He's got just enough strength to open his eyes and see Caja's dirty, tear-stained face, lips torn, eyes fixed on him, before a needle pricks his shoulder and he sinks into deep and dreamless darkness.

***

The world knows no peace.

Xacor lays in ruins, the Albs are defeated and their monstrous inhuman leader has been stripped for parts and buried under the wall of the tower in a final act both warning and compassion, but Jax tells them the war has only just started. His face is sad and resolute, when he tells Origin the truth about elex, about the comet and about far more serious coming danger. Caja isstanding close to him the whole time.

It's a been a few frantic weeks after that, during which Ray keeps to himself. He does mostly mindless work – sorts rubbish, cleans and helps around the kitchen, spends time in the shade of the great tower healing slowly, avoiding arms, armor and Jax for the time being. He needs to think.

All this time he kept going on autopilot, not thinking of anything beyond surviving the day and now after all the danger and excitement waned Raysuddenly has a big decision to make. There is nothing keeping him here anymore, when his friendship with Jax is already hanging by a thread after the ugly truth has resurfaced, apart from his own moronic thirst for self-punishment. What else would you call hanging around here, wallowing in disgust and pity while watching his two best friends be together.

It's a slow evening, Ray numbly watches the dying campfire, surrounded by warm and tranquil night, and that's how Caja finds him. She puts the new bandages and the berserker ointments on the log beside him and gestures for him silently to lay back and let her do the work.

It's still a little awkward between them, Ray didn't try to initiate any contact with her beyond the clumsy acknowledgement of her saving him from the incinerating fire in the glider and that had been a disgraceful conversation enough for both of them. All that's left is to just roll with it and watch her in silence, while she unwraps his dressing and makes him a new one.

She smooths out the rough fabric of her clothes as she kneels beside him, her fingers don't twitch and her face is impassive when she applies the salve onto his side with careful tingling movements. Ray likes to watch her like this, even though he doesn't let himself dwell on it too much. She finishes with the ointment quickly, carefully moves between his spread knees to wrap the bandage tightly across his healing ribs.

It should be uncomfortable to be close to her like this – Ray can catch the smell of her hair, something grassy and fresh, like a gust of wind caught in the rye field – but it really isn't. At least not until she stops and looks up from where she is kneeling in front of him, and it puts her face only a few inches apart from his.

«What happened?» she asks Ray quietly. «What happened with you and Jax?»

Ray stiffens when Caja says Jax's name and looks away over her shoulder into the burning coal and the darkness behind it. What happened with him and Jax is quite a story, and while Caja watches his face for clues he is torn between genuine desire to tell her and feeling pathetic about it. Complete numbness and being totally enraged over the fact that she dared to break the well-earned silent balance between them.

On any given day Ray hates heart-to-heart. He would weasel out of it, joke and be a sarcastic ass until the other person gives up, but he is tired. _Drained to the fucking bone_ to be exact. So, his tightly clamped jaw unclenches and his lips open and he doesn't even blame himself for it, not at first.

«It was me who shot his glider,» Ray forces out of his mouth. Dry, humourless resolve sinks slowly into every cell in his body, but the emptiness inside him doesn't even shake. Caja sits back on her feet clearly surprised. But – Ray realises listening to his hammering heart – not angry. Or disgusted. She frowns and cranes his head to the side, prompting him to speak.

And then Ray can't hold himself back. Something inside him simply brakes and Ray vomits words all over them, rambles nonsensically about everything. He shot Jax's glider and when it crashed, he lifted all he could off him and left Jax to bleed out on the riverbank in the jungle. Jax should have killed him when he found Ray in that forgotten old diner, but instead the Commander saved his life in more ways than he could count. And his pathetic rant doesn't stop there, he goes on about everything else: how he caught the two of them one evening, how he wanted to hate her, but couldn't, how Jax's fingers almost crashed his windpipe in the armoury, how he made peace with death piloting the glider to its resting place, on and on and _fucking on_ till he is a shaking heaving mess.

Caja's palms are rough and refreshingly cool on the overheated skin of his cheeks when she makes him look her in the eye. Her arms wrap around his waist and shoulders tightly, but carefully, always mindful of his injuries. She whispers into his temple that he shouldn't talk this way, that she is so glad she could save him, and Ray squeezes her, buries his fingers in her hair and his face in the soft damp skin of her shoulder and breathes out.

He knows he should really stop holding someone's – let alone Jax's - girlfriend in this vaguely suggestive way, but Caja doesn't let go. So, neither does Ray.

***

For the next few days Ray feels lightheaded and washed out, like a pile of clothes tumbled in the rift of the river until clean and then hung out to dry. If anyone saw or heard anything about his outburst they wisely keep it to themselves. Both Caja's and Jax's routines didn't shift an inch, so Ray comes to terms with his pathetic behaviour – especially since the whole emotional disaster actually helped him feel better in the end.

He still hasn't decided between leaving and staying, but none of those options make him sad or scared anymore.

Life moves forward, of course, it can never wait for them to sort everything out. They go on dismantling some converters and leaving some working, planting trees, making guns, establishing trade routes and training, training non-fucking-stop for the upcoming danger. Jax tries to keep the factions united as much as they can be under the circumstance, but he's obviously set for failure – the outlaws gained their title for a reason, berserkers are pushing for further rejection of technology and the clerics are watching from the side lines, they sympathise, but don't move a finger to help.

Ray has seen for himself how durable Jax can actually be, but even he is stretching thin. And, Ray figures, now more than ever he needs what he always needed – loyal capable companions. So, one not particularly special day the outlaw swallows his pride and, before he can get scared and run away, corners the commander near the workbench.

Jax doesn’t say anything while Ray fumbles nervously with the clasps of his duster and searches for the right words, but he lays down the screws and bolts and parts of his rifle and turns fully around to face him. Ray suddenly realises just how long ago was the last time he looked at Jax's face, into Jax's warm and focused eyes and just how much Ray misses him, how much he wants things to be the way they were before.

«I'm sorry,» it's not the most original apology, but those words come from the bottom of Ray's soul for the first time in his life probably. «I should have told you, I'm sorry.»

Jax looks at him silently and nods in acknowledgement. Ray remembers the feel of Jax's hand on the back of his neck that evening in the village and he'd give anything for Jax to come and touch him now, but he will take what he's given.

***

It's been raining all day and the stupid rain is making Ray's plain dinner with a side of extra misery. He pushes the pieces of dry meat around his plate watching the grey wall of water outside. The moisture in the air makes it hard to breathe, most of the people have finished with their dinner quickly and ran back to their rooms, leaving only him, Caja and Jax to sit at the table.

Caja picks a piece of green leaf with a bored expression, Jax munches silently on the cultivator loaf. The evening has worn itself out, but Ray can't bring himself to step out into the pouring rain outside. Caja looks at him, then at Jax, then decidedly puts her fork on the table and stands up.

She has a very attractive laughter, Ray decides after his third or fourth unspeakable cocktail of beer infused with distilled alcohol, that Caja dug up from the big stained glass jug in the corner of the room. It was her idea – a curious berserker mind, she said – and the result came foul, impure, with floating specks and the color of piss, but it does the job just fine. Caja herself is tipsy, flustered, there's a sheen of sweat on her cheekbones and tears of laughter in the corners of her eyes at Ray's undoubtedly gross joke. Across the table from Ray Jax nurses his dirty drinkin the loose hold of his hand and smiles broadly, showing a two rows of alb-white teeth.

When Caja poured him the first disgusting cup Ray was sceptical of the whole idea, but now the empty mess hall feels like the most welcoming place on Magalan for him. It's almost like the whole Thorald-Xacor-Hybrid-Zardom mess never happened, Ray tries to remember the details of that, but he can't. It's funny, so he smiles and catches Caja's smile back along with a soft glance.

It's time for him to go though. It's late, he's told all of his dirty jokes already and if he has one more sip, he's going to pass out on the floor. So, he chews the last bit of his dried meat and turns to say goodnights and leave, when Caja's hand wraps tightly around his wrist.

It looks small compared to his, the skin of her palms is rough and callused and it burns like fire. Ray lets out a gasp, sudden in otherwise quiet room and looks at Caja in confusion. Her eyes are intense, dark, she watches him with bated breath, the ends of her hair that broke loose from the ponytail tremble with each heavy pound of her heart. Her lush red mouth is open and the air around them is thick with something more than just moisture.

Ray swallows, slowly stands up straight and pries his hand away.

«What kind of a game you're playing?» his voice is rough, it is seized up in his throat. It just... _can't be_ , whatever he thinks she means. Ray is imagining it. And that's when his eyes flicker nervously behind her form, to Jax, and catch his gaze before he's too afraid to look.

Jax stands up and moves past Caja to stand right in front of Ray not looking away from him for a moment. He advances slowly, carefully, like he is hoarding a jumpy animal until he is standing too close for comfort. Ray can smell alcohol on his breath, hear the rustling of road leathers, stretched tightly over his broad shoulders. There's no more buffers between the two of them – no enemies, no table, not even Caja – and straight up Jax is still fucking hypnotizing, his presence pushes all the air out of Ray’s lungs, he wants to look away, but he can't, not when Jax is watching him that intensely with his soft and caring eyes.

«It's not a game, Ray,» his ears are turning red at the sound of his own name spoken in the deep cushioned voice. The thick air stands still between them, little specks of dust floating in slow motion.

Jax is a huge, unstoppable force, he is the Sun and the Stars and the emptiness around them mixed in perfect proportion to torture Ray exquisitely. Jax is a snake and Ray is a mouse, rigid from head to toe when caught in its gaze.

«Not a game,» a slender hand lands carefully on his shoulder, slides up the curve of it and settles on his chest, where his heart is beating away with a force of Calaan's hammer. Ray has almost forgotten about Caja, her soft whisper and the faint smell of her hot skin reminds him that she is still present in the room and that now there's two of them crowding him against the mess hallwall.

Ray doesn't know what to do or where to look. His eyes jump from the long fingers caressing his chest to the defined wiry muscles in the exposed parts of Commander's shoulders. From her red mouth to his curled eyelashes.

Caja is the first one to kiss him. The kiss is tentative, exploring, her body leans into his while she tastes his mouth once, twice, three times. When Jax gets his turn, his cool lips are fierce, he devours Ray relentlessly and Ray snatches himby the front of his leathers, desperate and lost in the hotness of all of it.

_This is a bad idea;_ the little sober part of his brain tells him. This is _the worst idea_ if he ever saw one, he will not get out of this unscarred. But who is he kidding, he will also not walk away, not for all the elex shards in the world. Who could?

Later he wouldn't remember how they got from the mess to Jax's room, he won't remember the soaking rain, the puddles on the ground they had to jump over, the creaking wood of the door or the sound of the closing lock. He wouldn't be able to recall seeing anybody or anybody seeing them.

All Ray remembered was being hungry for anything and everything they have in store. And _fuck him_ if they didn't have in store way more than he would have thought.

Caja's hands are pushing on his chest, pressing his naked form into the bed andher hips are moving against him without a pause in sharp delicious motions. On the inside she is wet, hot and so fucking snug Ray could probably feel her heartbeat with his cock if they stopped, but they are not going to stop. He would die if they stopped.

Jax is looking at Ray from behind her shoulder, kissing and nibbling hotly Caja's neck, licking sweat and rain water off her skin. His and Ray's hands clash and intertwine on her stomach and slide between her legs, where Ray and Caja are joined, in a friendly competition of who gets to send her over. In the end Ray is not sure who wins, but Caja's spine bows and her mouth opens in a silent cry and Ray's heart could burst from the beauty of her, dangerous and debauched and coming while clutched tightly in Jax's arms.

A few minutes later it's his balls which are about to burst, because Jax lifts Caja's limp body off of him and stretches above him and takes them both in his large rough palm. Ray sobs and thrashes and should probably be embarrassed, but he can't bring himself to care, all he can think about is the tight gripand Caja's slickness which helps the glide of Jax's hand and the steel-wrapped-in-silk feeling of Jax's cock next to his.

Orgasm hits him like a nuclear blast. There will be bruises on Commander's hips, where Ray held him too tight, everything is too wet and sticky between them, Jax's head falls against his shoulder, and Ray puts his hand on the nape of Jax's neck the way he _so_ _wanted to_ and only then he closes his eyes.

He falls asleep dirty and exhausted, with Jax's arm thrown across his chest and Caja's lips pressing to his sweaty temple.

***

Autumn is upon their growing village in a blink of an eye, hunting and gathering become more urgent than raiding and defending with Xacor defeated and winter on the horizon. Fields of all sorts of edible things, planted under Lloyd'scareful attention, spread from the tower in all directions. Ray has taken towalking between them during rapidly lengthening dusk putting his open palm against the growing plants, feeling the sprigs tickling caress.

Jax smiles at the sight of the village as well, wiping sweat off his forehead. Laugh lines crinkle in the corners of his eyes, pale against his now tanned, but still strikingly beautiful face. He adjusts the jackal carcass on his shoulders and slaps Ray reassuringly on the back.

Ray smiles to him in return. Coming back home after a successful hunting with an ample catch, even if they are dirty and tired, feels incomparably good. The outline of Origin shines on the horizon, bathed in the red light of the setting sun, warm with the promise of a bath and a drink.

When they reach the entrance, Caja is already walking towards them from the kitchen. She waits obediently for Jax to lower the carcass onto the nearby table and only then jumps forward, wrapping her legs and arms around his body like vine.

It doesn't hurt anymore – seeing them kissing and touching like this. If anything, it makes Ray's cheeks tingle a little now, even if he still looks away – a force of habit. Caja whispers something into Jax's ear and slides off of him back to the ground, then she walks carefully into Ray's line of sight.

«Hi,» she looks intoxicatingly good when she reaches for him and places a soft tentative kiss on the corner of his mouth – just a taste, a promise of what is to come.

«Hi,» he breathes out and watches her lips curl in a small smile.

«All good?» Caja takes in his demeanour – dusty, but no wounds or blood and before he can answer she gestures for him to put his part of the carcass on the table as well, takes his hand firmly in hers and pulls him after Jax towards the way to the baths.

Is it weird, that the three of them kind of make more than just a good team now? A little. Should Ray at some point sit them down and define this at least to an extent? Probably. Would he have done anything differently if given a chance? _Fuck no_.

Ray clutches Caja's delicate hand firmer in his own.

It's all good.


End file.
